Testing During Concept Learning and its Impact on Students' Study Order Choices

Abstract

When tasked with learning categorical information, the order which students choose to study category exemplars (i.e. blocked or interleaved) is an important component of self-regulated learning and can play a role in performance on future classification tests. Students often block their study despite higher classification test performance following interleaved study. Research on self-regulated learning has not yet examined how practice testing during learning influences study order choices. As such, my primary goal was to investigate the impact of practice testing versus studying on students' study order choices. Participants were tasked with learning to classify three basic rock categories by viewing subordinate exemplars of each category. To learn this information, participants were randomly assigned to study or practice test one rock exemplar at a time and then make study decisions about what rock type to study next. I found that participants who self-tested, compared to participants who studied, chose to interleave their study of rock categories significantly more.